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Radioactive waste left in the groundwater at the former Fernald uranium-processing plant in
southwestern Ohio could linger for a century, state officials estimate.

That's why the U.S. Department of Energy agreed yesterday to pay a record $13.75 million to
settle a lawsuit that the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency filed in 1986.

The payment, the largest of its kind in state history, is considered one of the final acts of a
years-long $4.4 billion cleanup at the plant, which refined raw uranium for nuclear weapons from
1951 to 1989.

The site is now known as Fernald Preserve, a park area with wetlands, forests and prairies.
Federal officials say the site will be safe for visitors when it opens this fall.

The plant, 18 miles northwest of Cincinnati, was notorious for contaminating the air, land and
water with uranium waste and radon -- both radioactive elements linked to cancer in humans. The
agency settled a class-action pollution lawsuit filed by the plant's neighbors for $78 million in
1989.

Lisa Crawford, president of the local advocacy group Fernald Residents for Environmental Safety
and Health, said she was happy to hear the groundwater case was over.

"This is the right thing for the DOE to do," Crawford said. "They damaged this groundwater, and
they needed to be held accountable for it."

The lawsuit was filed under a federal law that lets states collect money for damage done to
natural resources. That includes the Great Miami Aquifer, which supplies drinking water to cities
and homeowners.

Officials had to wait until the cleanup was finished to see whether there was any uranium above
what would naturally be found in the water.

Tests of groundwater done after the cleanup was completed in 2006 show that "there will be
contamination in the aquifer for more than my lifetime and my children's lifetime," said Tom
Schneider, the Ohio EPA's Fernald project manager.

The money will be used to help restore Paddys Run, a small stream that runs for a mile through
the Fernald site. The stream was the main path the uranium waste took to get into the groundwater,
Schneider said.

The restoration is intended to create a cleaner source of water to help dilute the radiation.
Schneider said the contamination extends for about a mile around the Fernald site.

The Department of Energy is pumping out contaminated groundwater. Crawford said no one in the
area gets their drinking water from private wells.

Johnny Reising, Fernald site director for the federal government, said the Department of Energy
already has spent about $14 million on projects to create wetlands, prairies and forests on the
1,050-acre site.

It's unclear when the Paddys Run restoration will begin. The money won't be paid until after a
30-day public comment period ends and U.S. District Judge S. Arthur Spiegel approves the
settlement.